The Sound of Goodbye
by Misha
Summary: Slash. After Lex leaves, Clark tries to put the shattered pieces back together.


The Sound of Goodbye   
By Misha 

Disclaimer- I totally do not own any of the characters of Smallville (though I wish I owned Lex!), they belong to a lot of people with more money than me. I am not making any money off using them in this story, so please don't sue me. I do however own the poem that I use, that's all mine, so please don't take it without permission. 

Author's Notes- Okay, I was going through my files when I found a poem I wrote ages ago. I decided that it could kind of fit Lex and Clark, so I decided to write a story to go with it. The poem is in ~~. I just thought it fit. This is Clark/Lex slash and is pretty angsty. Well, that's all. Enjoy! 

Spoilers- None. 

Rating- PG-13.   
--- 

~The wind blew cold,   
And bitter to the bone.   
I was adrift on the road,   
Lost and alone.~ 

Clark knew he had to leave, so he did. 

He left Smallville behind him, knowing that he'd never really be able to go back. 

Not really. He'd come back to visit, but he'd never belong there again. 

Too much had happened. 

He knew that whenever he was there, the memories would overwhelm him. The memories that he was desperate to forget. 

He didn't know where he would go. 

There was really nowhere **to** go. 

He had left his past behind him, yet the future was so clouded. He had no idea what it held. 

Right now he felt so lost, and more alone than he ever had in his entire life. 

~The only sound was the wind blowing through the trees,   
And it made me sigh.   
It reminded me of the day you left,   
It was the sound of goodbye.~ 

It was a cold bleak day, the only sound to be heard for miles around was the harsh wind. 

Clark couldn't stand it. 

The wind tore through him. Reminded him of a day he wanted so badly to forget. 

The day that Lex had left. 

The wind had been harsh then, too. Blowing fiercely behind them as they stood there, glaring at one another, swearing eternal enmity. 

A friendship broken, a love lost, a hatred formed. 

So much had ended that day. 

It still hurt him to think of it. 

~Life works in funny ways,   
Sometimes you stay and sometimes you go.   
I know our time was up,   
But still I wonder why it had to be so.~ 

Even though rationally, Clark had known that it had to come someday. 

He had always known that he and Lex couldn't last. He had been playing with fire, of course he had gotten burned. 

Yet, it still hurt. 

Even after the way it had all played out. Even after everything, a part of him still wondered why. 

Why was fate so cruel to show him true love and then to take it away so bitterly? 

They didn't even get a good ending. They parted as enemies, all that they had shared lost forever. 

~It was time for us to part,   
There's no use in asking why.   
It was decided long ago,   
Even before the air was alive with the sound of goodbye.~ 

Still, Clark believed in fate. 

Things happened because they were meant to. And for some reason, he and Lex were meant to end the way they did. 

There was no point in him asking why it had to be that way. It just was. 

Nothing would change that. It was how it was supposed to be. 

Though he couldn't explain it, Clark knew that he and Lex weren't finished with each other. Not by a long shot. 

Their story still hadn't fully played out, the act had just changed. From friends to lovers to enemies... 

The scene had been set, but for what? What happened for here? 

What destiny would he and Lex share? 

~So here I am,   
Far from it all.   
When I found myself all alone,   
I knew it was time to follow the call.~ 

He had left Smallville because he needed to get away from everything. He needed to find himself again. 

So he decided to follow his instincts wherever they may lead him. As long as they took him away from where all the memories were. 

Maybe then he'd be able to begin to forget. 

He honestly hoped so. 

~I had to find myself,   
Rebuild the pieces I let die.   
I had to move on,   
I had to get past the day you heard the sound of goodbye.~ 

It had taken a few years, but, eventually, Clark was able to rebuild himself from the shattered mess that Lex had left behind. 

He had built a new life out of the wreckage of the old. 

Lex was gone, he wasn't coming back, and things between them would never be the same again, he had finally accepted that. 

He had cried and screamed and gotten angry, and eventually he had gotten his frustrations out and moved on. 

He had been able to put that last day, those horrible last moments, behind him and prepare himself for the future. 

For the battle that was sure to come. 

~It hurt so bad,   
I thought I'd never be free.   
But in time things changed,   
And I learnt to be just me.~ 

Clark had never realized how much he had come to expect Lex to be there, until he wasn't. 

It had taken him a while to get used to being on his own. He was so used to Lex's habits, to his preferences, that it was hard to overcome that and begin to deal with the fact that he was alone. 

But, despite how much it hurt, eventually he succeeded. 

He went from being part of Lex and Clark to being just Clark again and he survived. 

~It's never easy to let go,   
And to say it was would be a lie.   
But I can do it,   
Because it's time to listen to the sound of goodbye.~ 

Letting go of that bit of whatever it was that kept him clinging to the past, was hard. 

But, he knew the time to do so had come, so he did. 

He sealed the past away once and for all concentrated on the present and the future. 

Things would never be the same again, but suddenly that was okay. It wasn't easy, but it was okay. 

~And now years have passed,   
Things have changed.   
Yet you don't forget,   
And I still wonder why that was the way it was arranged.~ 

More than ten years had passed since that fateful day. Since he and Lex changed forever. 

Clark had moved on. 

He had found love again. 

He loved Lois in a way he could never have loved Lex. But then again, he loved Lex in a way that he would never be able to love Lois. 

You couldn't compare the two. They were too different. 

He was a different person now than he had been when he and Lex were together. He'd never be the person he was ever again. 

But that was okay, that was normal. After all, things changed. 

Still, he knew he'd never forget Lex, and sometimes, as he faced down his former lover turned worst enemy, he wondered why things had to be the way they were. 

Why they could never have a happy ending. 

~And in the air I can still hear it,   
The distant sound of goodbye.   
As paths part it still plays,   
The sound of goodbye.~ 

The End 


End file.
